Frumpy Mom: There’s a new Barbie and I want her

I have to warn you men out there that you may now wish to go get a beer out of the fridge and do the crossword puzzle, because I’m about to talk about Barbie dolls. Well, OK, you’re probably reading this at the breakfast table, so don’t get a beer. Take a shot of vodka instead. No one at church will ever know.

But I didn’t come here to talk to you about vodka. I came to tell you about the new Dia de Los Muertos Barbie and Ken dolls from Mattel, which cost a mere $75 each. Take it out of petty cash.

I love Barbie so much that I even specified in my adoption application that I wanted a little girl who I could play Barbies with. Most of you guys (I thought you were doing the crossword puzzle) won’t relate.

Anyway, in 2001, the adoption social workers tried to convince me to take two little boys instead of the girl-and-boy set I’d requested, because more little boys need homes than girls. But I didn’t care, I was adamant that I wanted a girl who plays Barbie. And, luckily, I got one. Curly Girl and I had fun playing Barbie together for years, and I bought her all the Barbie accessories that my parents could never afford to buy me, including the sports car and even the swimming pool. That’s the entire point of having kids after all, to give them all the stuff that you wanted as a child and couldn’t have.

I remember going to interview race car driver Ashley Force in her trailer at a racetrack, and discovering on the way out that there was an Ashley Force Barbie doll. I bought it and brought it home excitedly to Curly Girl, who ripped her out of the box and stripped off her clothes in nanoseconds, leaving her looking like every other naked Barbie in existence.

Then, one day she woke up and cruelly abandoned her Barbie, Ken, Midge, Francie and their pets, cars, houses, clothes and other impedimenta, and demanded Bratz instead. Remember Bratz? They were slutty Barbies with puffy, silicon-injected lips, heavy makeup and skimpy clothes. But eventually Curly Girl moved onto her sole mission in life, which was making my life a living hell until I agreed to let her have a dog.

I kept buying her animatronic dogs, but for some reason this did not satisfy her. After about four years of nonstop begging, I finally broke down and got her Buddy the Wonder Dog, a pound puppy, to her everlasting joy.

But meanwhile I once again had no one to play Barbies with, although the dog would be happy to chew them up. I suppose someday I’ll likely have grandchildren, but hopefully not soon.

This matters desperately because Barbie was my best friend when I was a girl. As you know if you’re a regular reader, I was a weird, geeky child and there were times when Barbie was my only friend. I got the Barbie magazine, clipped out a coupon and formed my own chapter of the Barbie Fan Club. I think we had three members. We used to have meetings in my front yard, though I must confess I don’t exactly remember the agendas.

My dad was a staff sergeant in the Air Force in those years and we had so little money that the last few days before payday were “potato pancake” dinner days. Sometimes because my mom had given away our last $5 to some mother who was even more broke than we were, and needed to feed her kids. This used to infuriate my dad.

Since we had so little money, I was thrilled to tears when my parents gave me a cardboard Barbie Dream House for Christmas.I was never interested in Ken, though. He was a wimp to me. I used to steal my brother’s G.I. Joe dolls (oh, excuse me — action figures.) and use them as Barbie’s boyfriends, because they were all muscled and macho.

I loved my Barbies desperately, and I was sad when my mom threw them all away when we had to move to an Air Force base in Puerto Rico. But, then, I discovered boys, and the dolls were toast.

I still gawk in wonder when I come across someone who’s got the whole set, including a trunk full of clothes. When I was in India in 2019, I could barely restrain myself from buying an Indian bride Barbie in her full regalia, in a department store in Varanasi. She was magnificent and not that expensive. But her box was ginormous and I couldn’t even imagine how I was going to get her home, nor what I would do with her once she got there.

It’s the same with these Day of the Dead dolls. I adore them. I love going to Mexico for Day of the Dead, and I love Barbie, so, duh. But, seriously, what am I going to do with them?

So, sadly, I will pass. And wait for the next generation of Barbie lovers to arrive, so I can play again.